From Garr Reynolds: Steve Jobs had a talent for iden­ti­fying what was important and what was not, and having the courage to toss what he felt was the nonessential. We see this reflected in the Apple line of products and in the Apple retail stores, and we also see it in Apple’s branding and all aspects of their marketing commu­ni­ca­tions. But there was a time when Apple had gotten away from its roots and away from simplicity and clarity, not only in terms of its marketing but in terms of its products too. It took Steve Jobs coming back in 1997 to get the Apple brand back on track after years of neglect. This seven-minute clip below is from an internal presen­tation that Steve gave in Cupertino to his employees not long after he returned to Apple in 1997. If you are even remotely inter­ested in business or in marketing an orga­ni­zation or cause of any kind in which you truly believe, you need to see this short talk. · Go to Steve Jobs on marketing & iden­ti­fying your core values →

From Bruce Jones at Disney Institute: Tracks how Disney sets expec­ta­tions for employees from even before day one, and then follows through with training, rein­forcement and rewards to keep the “cast” oper­ating smoothly. For example, in describing the hiring processes at Disney, they acknowledge that the company culture may not be for everyone, and that it is in fact better to give potential employees the chance to self-select out before entering into the company. · Go to People management lessons from Disney →

From Bret Simmons: Covenant rela­tion­ships are forged with purposeful promises. All parties in the covenant are moti­vated to keep their promises not only because they share passion for a cause, but also because they deeply value and appre­ciate the inter­de­pendent posture of the covenant. When promises are strained, covenant encourages restoration instead of recourse. · Go to Inter­de­pendent covenant relationship →

From NPR: Ira Flatow talks with scien­tists and philoso­phers Sam Harris, Steven Pinker, Lawrence Krauss, Simon Blackburn about the origins of human values, and the influence of modern scien­tific thought on human values. Even if science can shape human morals, should it? Or does science bring its own set of precon­cep­tions and prej­u­dices to moral ques­tions? · Go to Talk of the Nation: Can science shape human values? And should it? →

From Mary C. Gentile, Ph.D. at ChangeThis: Instead of asking and answering the ques­tions ‘what is ethical?’ or ‘whether it’s possible to be ethical at work?,’ what if we asked ‘how can we success­fully voice and act on our own values?’ · Go to Rein­venting ethics →

From Rosabeth Moss Kanter: Many orga­ni­za­tions have state­ments of mission and values. Unfor­tu­nately, most of them sound alike. Who could quibble with the impor­tance of “respect” or “customer focus”? Values state­ments can seem like passive deco­ration for walls and the Web, easily ignored. And the words don’t really tell anyone what to do in any specific sense. But that doesn’t mean that values don’t matter. In orga­ni­za­tions that I call “super­corps” — companies that are inno­v­ative, prof­itable, and respon­sible — wide­spread dialogue about the inter­pre­tation and appli­cation of values enhances account­ability, collab­o­ration, and initiative. · Go to Ten essen­tials for getting value from values →